1902.] Kroeber, The Arapaho. 1 9 



presents are given by the father to the man who is summoned, 

 through an old man who cries out in public, to pierce the 

 child's ears.- Generally he receives the father's best horse. 

 If the man who is summoned has never killed or scalped any 

 one, he keeps the horse, but gives away his other presents to 

 a man who has thus distinguished himself in war, and who 

 actually does the piercing. If the man who pierces the 

 child's ears belongs to another tribe, the honor is so much the 

 greater. One man, when a child, had his ears pierced by an 

 Osage, because before peace was concluded his father had 

 fought chiefly against the Osages. The piercing is performed 

 with a sewing-awl; but, if the piercer has ever cut or slashed 

 an enemy or cut a scalp, he uses a knife instead of an awl. The 

 awl symbolizes a spear; the hole pierced, a wound; the drip- 

 ping blood, ear-ornaments; the cutting of the child's hair, 

 scalping. The wound is kept open by means of a little stick. 



Berdaches (men living as women) were found among the 

 Arapaho, as among the Cheyenne, Sioux, Omaha, Ute, and 

 many other tribes. They are called haxu'xan, which is 

 thought to mean "rotten bone." The following accounts 

 concerning them were obtained. 



The haxiixana" become so as the result of a (supernatural) 

 gift from animals or birds. Similarly, in the beginning of 

 the world, animals appeared as women (in certain myths, 

 such as that of Elk-Woman and Buffalo- Woman). Nih'a^'ga" 

 (the character corresponding to Manabozho and Ictinike) was 

 the first one. This is told in a myth. (He pretended to be 

 a woman, married the Mountain-Lion, and deceived him by 

 giving birth to a false child.) These people had the natural 

 desire to become women, and as they grew up gradually 

 became women. They gave up the desires of men. They 

 were married to men. They had miraculous power and could 

 do (supernatural) things. For instance, it was one of them 

 that first made an intoxicant from rain-water. 



Apud Indianos quos Cheyenne vocant, femina vixit cui viri 

 vox genitaliaque fuerunt. Vestibus mulierum usa est, et ut 

 femina cum feminis vixit. Hospitum oculos attraxit moribus 

 magis liberis. Viro connexum petente, consensum prsebuit; 



